


happy is what happens

by wrishwrosh



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Coming Out, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 10:12:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9814850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrishwrosh/pseuds/wrishwrosh
Summary: Jack has the A, and he loves his boyfriend, and he's officially out to all the people he loves most, so there's really no reason for him to be feeling like this. He should be so, so happy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> as always one million thanks to foot girl, she's a true gem.  
> title from thank goodness from wicked.
> 
> warnings for explicit descriptions of anxiety attacks, general bad mental and emotional spaces throughout.

He’s at practice when it starts to hit. One minute he's laughing, chirping Poots with the rest of the guys, and the next something twinges and he's out of sync, his world tilting just out of its usual axis. 

 

Sometimes Jack thinks that things have been too good, that he's been too happy. He worried about getting complacent after months of being comfortable and settled in his life. Clearly all that was shit, though, because he still recognizes panic immediately. 

 

He should tell someone. He should get off the ice, do his breathing exercises, call whoever. But there's only fifteen minutes left in practice, and he can't look unstable in any way, now of all times. So he gathers the shabby remainders of his focus around him and channels all of it into the physical sensations of skating--the press of his feet into the toes of his skates, the weight of his pads on his shoulders, the chafe of his helmet strap on the underside of his chin. He finishes the last drills on muscle memory alone and clears the ice with everyone else.

 

It only gets worse when he takes off his gear and he doesn't have that slight weight grounding him. His hands and feet start to get buzzy and numb, and it feels better not to focus his eyes. He looks aimlessly around the locker room until he can settle his gaze against Snowy’s water bottle as a stationary target. He probably looks bug-eyed insane right now, but the guys aren't really thrown off by anything he does. He can get away with a lot under the header of “Weird Zimmermann Shit.”

 

He gets dressed, and nobody bothers him, and he's almost there. It's not a long walk to the parking lot, but he has to stop and steady himself on the walls twice. 

 

He drags himself along under the weight that manifests on his shoulders. All he wants to do is find a quiet corner to lie down and press his face into the ground. He can't do that, though, not in this brightly lit hallway with trainers and teammates walking by, so instead he takes deep heaving breaths and stumbles forward towards his car.

 

Instead of tipping sideways onto the oily cement until his numb limbs melt into the pavement of the parking lot, he leans against the door of his car and fumbles for his keys. 

 

The feeling sinks down around his heart like wet sand. Everything inside his ribs is stuttering out of time with the rest of his body. His chest constricts, letting out ugly sobbing gasps without his permission. He’s disconnected from everything around him, like he’s operating on a different beat than the whole rest of the world.

 

He unlocks the car, folds himself into the front seat, and presses his face to the steering wheel. His shoulders climb up towards his ears. He’s crying now, and he doesn’t know how or when he started. 

 

Jack falls apart, and it feels terribly familiar.

  
  


*

 

Jack doesn't know who brought up the idea first, him or Bits. It was probably Jack, because Bittle is so stressed or relieved after they come out to the Samwell team that he refuses to ask for anything for a while. Anyway, at some point it becomes common knowledge between the two of them that Jack is going to come out publicly.

 

Jack is going to be the First Gay Hockey Player, and Bittle is going to be the First Gay Hockey Player’s Boyfriend. Jack likes this idea, in theory. Every time he has to hide, tell the media he’s not dating anyone or drop Bittle’s hand while they’re walking or stop himself from kissing Bittle in public, he feels sick.

 

Jack calls Bittle from the hallway outside the conference room where Falconers management is waiting to discuss his future. 

 

“I'm about to do it,” Jack says. “Gonna tell everybody. I mean, the GM and everybody.”

 

“Oh my goodness,  _ sweetheart _ , you could have told me beforehand, I could have come down! I could have sent something, I could have--”

 

“Bits, it's not a big deal. I didn't want to bother you.” That's a half lie. It feels like the biggest deal, but if he told Bittle in advance, it would have been too real too soon.

 

“Jack Laurent Zimmermann,  _ nothing _ you do could ever be a bother to me, you sweet boy,” says Bittle. 

 

Jack doesn't know if he would feel better or worse if he could look at Bittle’s face during this conversation.

 

“Haha. Well. I just wanted to tell you.” Jack’s shoe is untied. He pins his phone between his ear and shoulder and bends to tie it with shaky hands. “You're sure you're ready for this?” The other shoe seems a little loose, so he undoes it and ties it back up.

 

Bittle laughs. “I'm ready when you are, darlin’.”

 

George opens the door to the conference room and leans halfway out. “We’re ready for you, Jack,” she whispers. 

 

Jack nods, swallows. “Alright, Bittle, I have to go. I’ll let you know how it goes, yeah?”

 

“You call me the second you finish up, honey, okay? I love you.”

 

“Love you too, Bits.” He hangs up, shoves his phone in his pocket, takes a long, slow breath, and goes into the room.

 

The meeting goes fine. The Falconers organization supports him, or at least they want to look progressive, and they’ll be happy to provide him with all the necessary resources. They’ve all been coached pretty well, nobody says anything homophobic or even so much as expresses a doubt. When it’s over, he shakes hands with George and the PR people and whoever else is in the room and then retreats to the bathroom to press his face against the cold metal of the stall door so the tears don’t come.

 

On the drive home, he repeats “Hi Bits” to himself in the rear view until his voice sounds normal again, then he calls Bittle.

 

*

 

Jack has the A, and he loves his boyfriend, and he's officially out to all the people he loves most, so there's really no reason for him to be feeling like this. He should be so, so happy. He should be thriving, but instead he's on edge all the time, waiting for a threat that's not coming.

 

The dumbest things keep setting him off. He turns on the tv and they're talking about the Falcs’ playoff chances, he misses a shot at practice, Bits tweets about him, and then he's out of commission for hours, crying into his knees on his bathroom floor.

 

He's felt  _ bad _ more days than not for the past couple weeks, and he doesn't know what to do.

 

*

 

George catches him one day after practice and ropes him into her office. There's a collection of smiling young PR people lining the walls. She shoos him into one of the chairs across from her desk and stares at him from the other side, adjusting the lapels of her spotless suit.

 

“Afternoon, Jack. Now that everyone in the organization is on the same page regarding your coming out, we thought it was time to discuss the technical details. When, where, how, et cetera. We’d of course love for you to have as much input as possible on this process, but we have some folks from the PR department here to give you some suggestions and help with the nitty gritty if you need it. So, what are your thoughts?”

 

There’s a reason Jack likes to ambush George on runs to have serious discussions. She feels like a different person here in her office. On her own territory, she’s cooler, more businesslike. She smiles more, which shouldn’t unsettle him as much as it does.

 

“I, euh, didn’t have any plans. I wasn’t thinking of anything specific yet,” Jack says.

 

“Okay, we thought that might be the case.” One of the interns coughs quietly and leans in towards George’s desk. She shows George something on her phone. George nods. Jack squirms.

 

A different intern rifles through the leather-bound binder she’s holding and passes him a stapled packet of papers.

 

“That’s a list of five or six possible scenarios we’ve come up with, just some ideas and contingency plans, if you’d like to go ahead and look those over,” George says.

 

Jack worries the staple between his fingers and pretends to skim the first page. “Thank you, this looks--great. I should talk to Bittle, I mean, uh, Eric, before I make any choices here, though.”

 

“Yeah, Jack, of course. Why don’t you check in with him later today and let me know what you decide when you figure it out?” Two of the PR people start nodding thoughtfully and wordlessly. Jack feels like a child.

 

He takes the packet home with him and sets it on the corner of his kitchen island. Everytime he looks at it, his heart races. 

 

He doesn’t call Bittle. 

 

*

 

Jack changes his routines and hates himself every step of the way. He starts parking in a remote corner of the arena lot so nobody can watch him break apart after games and practices. He goes farther on his morning runs, because the more time he has to focus on the burn in his legs and the beat of his feet on the trail the less time he can dedicate to losing his shit. He talks to Bittle less, and says less of substance. He focuses on Bittle’s French class and Bittle’s stats and Bittle’s new friends, and steers the conversation away from himself wherever he can.

 

He tries to remember if this is how he felt before the OD. It's an unproductive train of thought. He's not on any meds this time around, so it can't get so bad this time. He's not going to end up in a hospital or rehab.

 

Still, he can't say if this is better or worse than it was then.

 

*

 

In his uglier moments, Jack goes through his mental list of people he could tell.

 

Jack can't tell his parents, because they're good at hiding it but he knows they still feel guilty about his overdose. If he let slip that he was feeling less than perfect, they would uproot their whole lives for him. They’d move to Providence or nuke their own reputations to defend him in front of the media. He can't be that kind of inconvenience again, so he can't let them know. Fortunately, hiding it runs in the family.

 

He can't tell any of his teammates, because half of them still think he’s a fuckup coke addict and the other half somehow actually respect him, and now they all know that he's gay or bi or dating a man or however they explain it to themselves. He's maintaining a tenuous balance with the guys, and talking to any of them about his emotions would be a hilarious and colossal mistake. 

 

He can't tell George, because of fucking course he can't tell George. She's a smart lady and very understanding, but Jack is already a liability to the organization in so many different ways.

 

He can't tell his Samwell team, because they all have their own lives. Shitty’s in law school and Lardo’s working so hard on her senior showcase and Ransom and Holster are doing such a good job with the captaincy, and Jack was never that kind of close with the Frogs plus they're probably pretty busy anyway. Jack can't just monopolize their time with his own shit, it would be selfish.

 

And Jack can't tell Bittle, because that would be so unfair. Bits is a college student. He has midterms coming up and he needs to study, and he's supposed to be having the best years of his life with friends and parties and the team, and he can't do any of that if he's busy worrying about his sad, messed up boyfriend in the next state.

 

In his ugliest moments, Jack knows he should break up with Bittle. It's selfish and low of him to tie Bits down like this when he deserves so much better than Jack and his anxiety. Jack lives far away, and he can't talk as much as Bittle wants, and he’s emotionally distant. He can't be a good boyfriend right now, and past evidence suggests he can't really be a good boyfriend ever. 

 

Jack should do the right thing and let Bittle go, but to do that Jack would have to explain, and he really should explain, but he really can't. He’s sure Bittle knows something’s up anyway, but God knows Jack is stuck. So now they're both in limbo.

 

Everything is worse than it needs to be, and it's all Jack’s own fault.

 

Bits texts him,  _ Skype later?? _

Jack texts back,  _ Not today sorry, very busy. _

 

Bits texts him,  _ hey can I call? _

Jack doesn't respond.

 

Bits texts him,  _ love you _

Jack doesn't know what to do.

 

*

 

He hates when it happens at games.  This time it's at least a jittery one instead of a despairing, sleepy one, and at a home game in the third period, so nothing is as bad as it could be. Still, Jack just really, really hates when it happens at games.

 

He can't stop moving on the bench between shifts, rhythmically rolling his neck and shoulders and wrists, shuffling his skates back and forth underneath him at a manic pace. Guy grabs his shoulder mid-rotation, and Jack freezes.

 

“We're two ahead, buddy. You can relax a bit.” Jack nods, doesn't look Guy in the eye or smile because if he does he might cry, but it's alright because everybody's used to him being a distant grouch during games. 

 

The effort of not moving makes Jack’s body ache. He presses his ankles together hard through his skates to relieve some of the pressure. He tightens his grip on his stick until his wrists feel brittle with the tension.

 

The rest of the game and everything after is a messy blur. The Falcs win by one, and it’s unremarkable. He doesn't score, and he doesn't make a fool of himself with the media, and he doesn't get stopped by anybody on the way to his car and then he's alone in the parking lot.

 

He doesn't want to drive home. He doesn't think he can sit still long enough. Jack's exhausted, he just played a full game, but he wants to  _ move. _ He wants to run home, sprint ten miles along the freeway to his stylish neighborhood, and then maybe just keep running forever, back to Samwell or Montreal or off the edge of the earth.

 

Instead, Jack gets in his car. His arms and legs jolt around him. He can feel his heartbeat pulsing in his neck. The intricate motions of putting the keys in the ignition and working the pedals are completely beyond him, so he sits in the front seat knocking the sides of his legs into the console and the door.

 

He tries to ground himself. He can't drive until he stops feeling like he's about to rattle right out of his body. He digs the heel of one hand into the muscles of his thigh to the point of bruising, like a desperate massage. He flattens his other hand against the steering wheel, pressing hard to feel the drag of the leather and the pull of the seam under his palm.

 

He takes side streets back to his apartment. It's slower, but better if he has to pull over and breathe. It's almost midnight on a Thursday, so the roads are fairly empty. Still, Jack jolts every time he passes another car and its lights flash in his eyes.

 

He pulls into his spot outside his building. His eye gets stuck on the light reflecting off a plate glass window across the street, and he doesn't know how long he stares at it before he remembers to turn the car off. His shoulders are still rolling compulsively.

 

In the quiet, bright elevator, Jack can hear his ugly grunting breaths echo around him. He feels feral. The way his reflection shifts and weaves in the artfully scratched metal of the elevator doors makes him antsy and nauseous.

 

The couple in the unit next to him have a baby that just started to sleep through the night, so he can't stomp and slam around as much as he wants when the elevator drops him on his floor. He curls up around a stifled sob as he opens the front door.

 

The light over the kitchen sink is on, and he thought he turned it off before he left, and that’s his breaking point. His collar feels like it’s choking him. He wants to lie down. He wants to stop existing.

 

He weaves across the floor towards the living room couch, yanking at the buttons on his shirt as he goes. The handful of stairs down into the living room tangle under his feet, and he falls. He braces his full weight on the end table, and it knocks the lamp over with a clatter. His arms give out, and he sits hard on the floor, muffling a frustrated shout in his hands.

 

“Jack?” a quiet voice says. Jack looks up, and Bittle is coming out of the bedroom, sleepily rubbing a hand over his face. Jack feels like shit. He scrubs a shaking hand under his eyes in the hopes of pretending everything is fine, but he’s already sitting on the ground hyperventilating in a torn shirt. It’s a lost fucking cause.

 

“Hey, Bits,” he coughs. Bittle looks terrified. 

 

“Jack, are you okay? I took tomorrow off, I thought it would be fun to surprise you--”

 

“Don’t think I’m gonna be the best host right now.” His accent twists in his stiff throat, garbling and slurring his words.

 

Bittle walks over and kneels on the floor next to him. He whispers, “Oh my gosh, baby, don’t worry about that, this is all my fault. I’m so stupid, I should have called before I came down.”

 

Bits has never seen him like this, Jack realizes. He caught Jack crying that once after the team was eliminated from the playoffs last year, but otherwise Jack has always been strong in front of him. All of this shit has been purely theoretical to Bittle before, just a footnote in Jack’s Wikipedia article, but now he’s seeing it and he’s going to leave. 

 

“What can I do, sweetheart? What’s gonna help?” Bittle asks. Jack just leans over onto his shoulder and curls up tighter into himself.

 

“Aw, honey.” Bitty wraps an arm around him and cards his fingers through Jack’s hair.

 

They sit in silence for awhile. Jack watches the moon through the kitchen window and matches his breaths to Bittle’s heartbeat. Eventually, he settles, hollow and exhausted like he always is afterwards. Bittle stifles a yawn, but the rhythm of his fingers on Jack’s scalp stays constant.

 

Jack levers himself up on one arm and clears his throat three times before he can choke out, “Bed?”

 

Bits looks at his face for a long moment. He nods, wipes his cool thumbs underneath Jack’s swollen eyes, and stands up, offering Jack a hand. He takes it. They limp down the hall to the bedroom, arms entangled. 

 

Bittle uses his grip on Jack’s arm to guide him down to sit on the bed, standing between his knees. He undoes the rest of the buttons on Jack’s ruined shirt and pushes it off his shoulders. Pausing with his hands on either side of Jack’s neck, he sighs.

 

“Sweetheart, I don’t--I don’t know what you’re going through. I hate that we have to be apart all the time, and I want to talk to you and  _ see _ you so much more often, and I just don’t know if anything I do is helping or hurting.”

 

Jack reaches up and reels Bits in. He presses his face into Bittle’s neck and mutters, “It helps. It’s better when I’m not alone. When I’m like this, I want--it makes me want to hide, but I don’t really want to be alone.”

 

He feels Bittle nod. “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.” He pulls back and kisses Jack softly on the cheek. “You’re the love of my life, Mr. Zimmermann,” he says.

 

The apartment seems too quiet now that Jack can hear things other than his own breath. It’s better here in the bedroom, where the street noise filters in through the window. It almost covers the soft shuffling sounds of Bits getting into bed next to him.

 

Bittle takes the right side of the bed, like he always does when he visits. It’s closer to the window, which casts a patch of moonlight on his pillow and makes his skin luminous and his hair glow like silver when he lies down. 

 

Jack curls towards Bits and grabs his hand, pulling it to his face. 

 

“Love you, Bits,” he whispers.

 

“Love you too,” Bittle responds.

 

Jack falls asleep. He doesn’t dream.

 

*

**Author's Note:**

> they said write what you know, so i journaled about my anxiety and turned into a fic about jack zimmermann, you're welcome and i'm sorry.
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](wrishwrosh.tumblr.com%20), come say hi


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